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Of course, one person can be controlled by...
 
Pauline Tangiora: Of course, one person can be controlled by this sort of technology and others can turn it on and switch it off as they please. How do we get a happy medium in this sort of contology? Who supervises the technology when we have them in our homes, where there are young children, where there is hard work to be done, and also the sort of technology which comes through into the homes. I’m very weary that this sort of technology is not abused and let freely go without supervision, where there are younger students in the house. Television was a medium which controlled many of our homes. Now, it’s jumped from the television to the Internet. Yes, we do need to have a look and see how it is controlling our lives. |
Pico Iyer: No, but we are being most easily distracted or scattered or turned into MTV videos. We allow ourselves to be cut up into byte-sized fragments to be distracted, to be taken away from what’s at the heart of us. I think control of that kind in the sense of brainwashing is for most of us only as strong as we allow itself to be. The Internet is just a reflection of humanity, for better and worse. It allows people to do bad things to us and it allows us to do good things more than ever before. But, I think the larger concern is what it is doing to our thought patterns, to our imagination, placing very misleading data before knowledge and knowledge before wisdom, breaking up our continuity and our attention span into little pieces, so we are accustomed to switching screens and digesting tiny little bytes rather than full pristine sentences as it were, and that is replacing fascination with the world with curiosity. I fear that sometimes the Internet is a perfect way of answering our lowest questions, fulfilling our least exalted questions about the world. In other words, it makes for a kind of global gossip machine and a global misinformation machine. So, clearly, the Internet doesn’t change humans anymore than planes changed humans or televisions changed humans or cars changed humans. But, it allows humans to do things in different ways, and so it puts more pressure on ourselves to try to live up to the better aspects of ourselves. by Pico Iyer |
Rachid ElDaif: Not at all. The internet is almost a gift of God. It gives me the feeling of power and the feeling that humans are somehow divine because with the internet you can be everywhere at the same time. It's great because it is a powerful device for communication, knowledge, influence and for being influenced. It's great. It's really great. Now it's true that the internet unfortunately ... you can save time but by doing this you save so much time so that we spend all our time and we have no more time to save. It takes a lot of time. But it isn't, like you said, something intimidating at all. We aren't intimidated or controlled at all any more. Well, you can be controlled. |
Raymond Federman: Perhaps in the beginning when we first acquired our first computer, we were intimidated. I have been working with a computer as a writer now for the past 20 years, and it’s true that my children, as soon as the computer arrived in our home, were immediately at ease with it, and I was intimidated. But now, I am the one who can teach those who are intimidated how to use it. It is so easy. I don’t think computer or the Internet controls us. On the contrary, I think it opens up an incredible space out there. It opens up the world. The world is there, and the computer, if one knows how to use it. But of course, one also can abuse it. There are invading forces on the Internet that should be controlled. I am talking about pornography, for instance, or other such thing and advertisement; but there are ways of controlling this. I mean you open your email in the morning, and there are 40 pieces of advertisement, but slowly and slowly you learn how to get rid of that and to do the essentials. So, I don’t think – no – I think every human being now should become familiar. I will start answering this in French. I think this is perhaps a bit better since all of a sudden, part of my English is running off. In a few words, I am not intimidated by the computer, rather the contrary: my computer is most precious to me, and I don't think that my computer controls me; I think that it is me who controls my computer. |
Robbie Conal: Maybe yes, but not because of the Internet unless you think that it's looking at us as much as we are looking at it. And all the time we spend on it, it's scanning us and is in the service of somebody behind it like the Wizard of Oz or the US government. There is a difference taking information about us and gathering up a database that will come back to haunt us when we do anything that the government doesn't like. I am not quite that paranoid although I probably should be. I have a feeling that even though there are like the NSA does gather information like that and has access to records from banks and from telephone servers, big corporations around the country. I don't really think they are smart enough but I think it's too much information for them that they are just gumming up their works by gathering all those stuff and having to parse it. So, really they are -- can just as easily fuck themselves up, having too much information about you is having not enough. And the reverse is not necessarily true. So, if you are talking about national security, our biggest problem in national security is the national security agencies and who runs them and how they run them? by Robbie Conal |
Rodrigo Baggio: I don’t think so. Actually I’m affirming it’s not. This is a good example of how we should properly use this technology. If we have Internet at home, it doesn’t mean we are going to have a power without precedent to it, like George Orwell’s image of the “big brother” can be destroyed if we use these new information and communication technologies, like broadband Internet access from our homes, to be knowledge producers and not only users or consumers. If we start making use of this technology to produce and ask questions through internet blogs, through local information we could be able to have a revolutionary weapon that could change our lives. It’s very important to realize that technology itself isn’t good or bad. It’s us human beings that are good or bad. Depending on the use we make of these technologies we can have a tool for social transformation. This is important to realize. And also important is to know that it’s possible to have at home some forms to protect and defeat ourselves from challenging questions of the new technologies like pornography and pedophilia. These are questions to make us, parents, worry about how these new technologies are being used in our homes. But this is indeed a very important form of transforming our reality, if we use it in a positive way. |
Sabiha El-Zayat-Erbakan: I think that there is at least the possibility of more control because of the distribution of the internet. I think that if you have the chance to collect more data and more information about people then it is not a big step to find a market for this data and information about people. A well know example for this in Germany is the motorway toll for heavy goods vehicles. Because the mere possibility to collect data about the movements of the citizens makes some people call for the possibility to control them and to deal with their information. But that might be similar if I would remain silent. Then there is no chance to control my thoughts. It is not before the very moment when I start speaking that people learn about my thoughts and might then whish to control these thoughts. As long as I don't speak nobody can do this. So the mere possibility of speaking bears a kind of potential. Still there is no alternative to speaking which would make sense. And in this respect I think that there are no alternatives for internet at home even though there is a principal risk for abuse. |
Sanar Yurdatapan: No, no, technical level should fight on us. Technologic development can neither save us nor damage anything. Most important is who uses that and how it uses. If we allow the technical development use us, then it’s a danger of course. But why not take it, learn how to use and use it. It is possible. We should do that. |
Santiago Roncagliolo: No, I think that we are have more freedom because of the internet. I think that the internet allows us to communicate with more people, it allows us to extend our possibilities, the persons we know and the works we can do. "Intimidate" and "control", I don't think that these are words that can be applied. Indeed, as people can communicate more efficiently with others, the control mechanisms are also being intensified. If your relation with other persons can [...] control, the internet will help to have this relation, to [...] this relation. But in any case, even if there are such cases, I don't think that it is a question of technology, that we can responsibilize technology for it. Technology is only an extension of our capacities. Cars are only an extension of our engine machines, telephones are an extension of our voice, computers extend our hearing and our messages, and the only thing technology does is to widen our possibilities man already has, extending them. It is evident that this implies the capacity of manipulation and of control and intimidation, but it also implies the capacity of communication, of information and of culture. |
Shaobin Yang: Computer is an efficient and practical machine. I don’t know where the intimidation and control come from. In fact, when using the computer, we let more new things absorbed by our brains. And it is economically and culturally beneficial. I don’t feel any intimidation or controlled. by Shaobin Yang |
Sihem Bensedrine: I am not sure if the internet could by an instrument to infiltrate privacy because nothing bars you from switching off your computer when you want it and at the moment you want it. But on the contrary to dispose of this technologie allows you can enter from your home the rest of the world and I think thats a great gift of modern society and the positiv aspect of the internet. But this positiv aspect can be turned into a negativ aspect concerning cybercrimes as for example paedophilia. But I think we have the instruments at our disposal to fight back these tendencies, the legal instruments exist and the required institutions also exist. But the fact that an instrument is used for criminel activities should not at all lead us the restrict the internet which has so many positiv and enriching aspects. So I think it depends on us, it depends on what we want to do with the internet which allows us to enter the whole world from home without being obliged to pay a lot of money for it. |
Sima Wali: It’s actually the opposite because you can go to more than one source of information. You can actually go to the source of information, and you are not stuck in a single source of information. And self-interest of promoting one aspect of the story is not a story that is easily bought these days. by Sima Wali |
Simon Retallack: I think there are two ways to answer that. I think that one of the consequences of having the internet in people’s homes is that with that often comes email. And now that -- We all have work emails. We’re used to people thinking they can email you and get an answer whenever they want and if we don’t answer quickly, then there’s something wrong that we’re doing. And I think it can become a form of tyranny. I don’t think it’s controlled by any one individual, or group of individuals; it’s the system. It promotes a way of life that means you’re never left alone, you’re always on duty, you’re always working. It’s got worse with these little blackberry machines, I think, probably. You’ve got to be highly disciplined to know when to turn your computer off. Of course, once you do that, you’re free, but it’s a hard challenge. We’ve got used to being in constant contact, constantly available. In the past, we weren’t. Even before telephones, it was even worse but it wasn’t that long ago, we didn’t have mobile phones; we didn’t even have fax machines. People couldn’t get a hold of us like that and couldn’t demand instant responses. We had to send post that took days to reach people and we had a more measured, a slower, pace of life. I think things have become so frenetic and in that sense, you know, the internet in our homes is part of a system that makes us live in a certain way. I think it’s not inevitable. We can do something about it. It requires a lot of determination. Turn the thing off. I don’t know whether it’s a vehicle to spy on what we’re doing. I suppose it could be. There are ways of using the internet that I think monitor, that enable people to monitor individuals usage; what sites you visit, and how often, and build up a sort of profile of individual users. And there are no doubt issues to do with privacy that need to be investigated. Both, I suppose, from a commercial perspective and from a governmental perspective. It depends who’s doing the snooping. But, to be honest, it’s an area that I need to know more about to be able to comment more -- further. |
Sohrab Mahdavi: Yes and no. Much like any totalizing system, the net has seepages anytime you make something big. It tends to leak and it tends to seep out and spread, propagate, branch out in various directions. That’s true with the Internet, which is a big system that can be used as a system of control but at the same time has leakages. Too bad for the States. |
Song Kosal: If we cannot control ourself, we will be controlled by them. We can become Internet or computer etiquette. by Song Kosal |
Steve Earle: No, because I think the difference between the internet and any other type of mass-media that's existed before is the internet works two ways. Television--you are bombarded with information but you cannot respond to it. Computers made it possible for us to talk back. So yeah, you could be intimidated and controlled by the internet if you put yourself in the position to be intimidated and controlled, but you can also, unfortunately, intimidate and control from your end. And you can push back. I think it makes it much, potentially, a much more democratic medium. by Steve Earle |
Sulak Sivaraksa: Yes, in a way we are, because this technology is not really a blessing, but a curse. We think we are powerful, but unknowingly, we are being intermediated and controlled. We should bear this in mind, and try to change this skillfully. |
Susan George: No, I don't think so, at least, not yet. I don't ever feel intimidated by my computer except that I’ve got too many messages that I'm expected to answer, but that's a different sort of problem. And I think that there are certainly ways, if you want to find them, that allow you to do things like blocking ads. You don't have to take the kinds of sites that are offered. You don't have to respond to the attempts to get you to buy this or that online. So I don't think it’s -- I don't think that that's the real danger. The real danger is addiction. Sometimes I sense that in myself, getting addicted to my message box, so that I – maybe I save some time because I don't have to write out letters anymore, and put them in envelopes, and take them to the post. But, I’ve got a lot more that I'm expected to answer, and I think it’s a good thing to have Internet at home. Many families communicate through that. Many families send pictures to each other. My children were in Africa. They sent me pictures every day of what they had just seen that day. I think that's marvelous. We feel much more in touch, and of course this can be multiplied by the hundreds, and keep communities and so on in touch. So, I -- for me the word is not intimidated, and it’s not controlled, it’s -- quite the contrary. I think it gives a sense of freedom, and a sense of capacity, and not -- we’re not intimidated. We’re not made to feel fearful, but we are made to feel that we are -- and we can be freer than we were, and we can be more creative than we were. So, I see no downside so long as there is a minimum of control exerted over the aspects of ads and pornography and all of that. by Susan George |
Swami Pragyapad: See, any technology we have in our world, it can be used and it can be misused also. There are advantages of using the technology and there are disadvantages of using the technology. There is a possibility that people may become more intimated and more controlled with the advent of Internet, with the availability of so much information and not having the ability to filter the information, what is good for us, what is not good for us, but that still does not stop us from using technology. If we have to exchange ideas, if we have to exchange our views, we need to have technology, and Internet is a very effective tool in exchange of ideas and exchange of information in a very good, fast, and efficient way. So, in spite of a possible drawback of people being little more intimidated and little more controlled by Internet, I think we should still go ahead with Internet because it is also a way to make us free. It is also a way for us to have more and more knowledge, which is very much essential for our economic and social development. |
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